Our ‘sophisticated’ radar system – Ravinder Singh

Should Malaysians feel proud that Malaysia is perhaps the only country in the world that has a radar system which not only can identify an aircraft from a blip on the screen, but also determine the intention of the aircraft?

We certainly seem to have left the whole world far, far behind in the technology of determining whether an aircraft intruding our air space is hostile or friendly by merely looking at the radar screen.  Malaysia Boleh! 

Next, Malaysia must also be the only country in the world that has an air force with the SOP that if a jet is scrambled due to some contingency, it must not return to base without blasting the rogue object out of the sky, even if it be a civilian passenger plane that for some reason is where it should not be.

This reminds me of the story of the Gurkhas who are said not to return a drawn kukri (Nepalese knife) to its holder without smearing it with blood. Again, Malaysia Boleh.

A Japanese defence minister would rather commit hara-kiri than tell the whole world that a jet was not scrambled to investigate an unidentified blip on the radar screen which was flying incognito as there was no need to shoot it out of the sky as it had been identified as non-hostile.

Did our defence minister think that he was talking to some two year old when he explained why a jet was not scrambled when the air force radar detected a blip that was flying incognito over Malaysian airspace? Another Malaysia Boleh as this could not happen other than in Bolehland. 

Maybe the defence minister was confident that Malaysia’s education system would not fail him, i.e., his audience would not have the HOTS (higher order thinking skills) to know the difference between playing computer games and a real life air-space intrusion.

It’s so frightening to know that our defence minister took the air space intrusion, albeit by our own aircraft (not known at the time of the intrusion) like children’s “masak-masak” game – a make believe game.

Who is he doing a favour to by making such a ridiculous statement? Is he covering up for the air force personnel who had failed to rise to the occasion and do the needful to safeguard Malaysia’s air space?

Could the defence minister go one step more and explain why Malaysia’s air-force does not follow the SOP of other air forces around the world in dealing with air space intrusion?     

If there was dereliction of duty by the air force, then the minister should be giving the head of the air force the boot and not be like a mother hen that hides its chicks under its wings when an eagle hovers overhead.

With all these nonsensical stories that Malaysians are being told about the mystery surrounding MH370, can Malaysians be blamed for feeling/thinking that there is a deliberate attempt to confuse the people as there is something that they must not be told?

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.